Online articles from November 2003

Online archives from November 2003

The power of information bumps into diminishing returns: the balance of power has shifted from availability and accessibility to competence and control.(the home page)
November 1, 2003... Not long ago I listened to an attorney lecture a group of journalists about the power of information. Specifically, he was talking about how knowing personal information about potential jurors and witnesses could substantially bolster a...

Vascoda, the German digital library, debuts.(Industry News)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... A new German portal for scientific information, named Vascoda, debuted in August 2003 at the IFLA conference in Berlin. Established by 37 German libraries, research institutes, and other organizations and funded by the German Ministry of...

Dialog enhances company profiles; LexisNexis enhances company dossier.(Industry News)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Dialog Company Profiles (DCP), a stand-alone company and industry research tool accessible by a password separate from a standard Dialog account, offers profiles for nearly 500,000 publicly traded and privately owned companies from 188...

LexisNexis.(Legal)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... LexisNexis announced the availability of the official version of California's new plain-English civil jury instructions. The state adopted plain-English jury instructions in July 2003 to replace phrases like "preponderance of evidence" with...

Thomson Delphion.(Legal)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Thomson Delphion now offers searching of full-text patent specifications from the German national collection. With main claims back to 1968, this is the most comprehensive set of German patent data available. The collection includes...

Thomson Financial announced that new issues and syndicated loan data are available on Thomson ONE Banker-Deals, a Web-based interface that provides an extensive and flexible resource for intelligence on worldwide M&A, project finance, equity, bond, and syndicated loan transactions. (mergers and acquisitions).(Business & Finance)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Thomson Financial announced that new issues and syndicated loan data are available on Thomson ONE Banker-Deals, a Web-based interface that provides an extensive and flexible resource for intelligence on worldwide M&A, project finance, equity,...

Mergent, Inc. announced the introduction of a product unique in the world of financial information providers: an accredited, indicated annual dividend service that projects a stock's dividend payments over the next 12 months.(Business & Finance)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Mergent, Inc. announced the introduction of a product unique in the world of financial information providers: an accredited, indicated annual dividend service that projects a stock's dividend payments over the next 12 months. Though standard...

IBM and Factiva announced an agreement in September to co-develop text analytics solutions built on the IBM WebFountain platform.(Alliances & Deals)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... IBM and Factiva announced an agreement in September to co-develop text analytics solutions built on the IBM WebFountain platform. Factiva is the first company to license IBM's WebFountain e-business on demand service and its text analytics...

Snapshots International and Content Directions, Inc. (CDI), the first commercial DOI Registration Agency, announced an agreement to register DOIs for Snapshots' entire collection of market research reports.(Alliances & Deals)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Snapshots International and Content Directions, Inc. (CDI), the first commercial DOI Registration Agency, announced an agreement to register DOIs for Snapshots' entire collection of market research reports. Snapshots Reports currently cover 35...

Nstein Technologies Inc. has been engaged by Wiley InterScience to construct a working prototype.(Alliances & Deals)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Nstein Technologies Inc. has been engaged by Wiley InterScience to construct a working prototype using Nstein software to enhance the search and retrieval experience of Wiley InterScience's customer base [Nstein: 514/908-5406; www.nstein.com;...

Serials Solutions, Inc. and NewsBank, Inc. announced an agreement to improve the accessibility and accuracy of electronic content for mutual subscribers.(Alliance & Deals)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Serials Solutions, Inc. and NewsBank, Inc. announced an agreement to improve the accessibility and accuracy of electronic content for mutual subscribers. As part of this agreement, NewsBank electronically transfers metadata for its electronic...

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) launched an on-demand search service, Science IP, designed to meet the needs of information professionals, attorneys, and others in the patenting and R&D communities who do not have the time, staff, or expertise to meet their scientific information retrieval needs.(Sci-Tech)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) launched an on-demand search service, Science IP, designed to meet the needs of information professionals, attorneys, and others in the patenting and R&D communities who do not have the time, staff, or expertise...

Wiley InterScience. (new interface).(Sci-Tech)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Wiley InterScience announced the launch of a new interface, the result of a comprehensive redesign of the site's underlying information architecture and its graphical interface. At its commercial launch in 1999, Wiley InterScience was primarily...

RSS Primer for Publishers and Content Providers. (published).(Sci-Tech)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... An RSS Primer for Publishers and Content Providers has been published by EEVL, the Internet guide for engineering, mathematics, and computing of Heriot-Watt University. RSS provides a way of driving traffic to, and increasing brand awareness...

The Thomson Corporation has acquired Techstreet, Inc.(Sci-Tech)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... The Thomson Corporation has acquired Techstreet, Inc., a digital content delivery company that provides full-text industry standards and specifications to engineers, researchers, and technical and information professionals from the world's...

Sirsi Corporation.(Peopleware: VP Marty Keeley appointed)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Sirsi Corporation announced that Marty Keeley, a veteran of technology and book distribution companies serving the library community, has joined the company as vice president of strategic initiatives.

Inmagic, Inc.(Peopleware: appointments)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Inmagic, Inc. announced the appointment of David M. Darsch, a strategic business advisor with 24 years of entrepreneurial and technology management experience, as chairman of the board of directors. Mr. Darsch, who has served on the Inmagic...

MuseGlobal, Inc.(Peopleware: VP Emily Fayen appointed)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... MuseGlobal, Inc. announced that Emily Fayen, formerly with Information Quest, RoweCom/divine's online database of scientific, technical, and medical journal literature, has joined the company as vice president for digital content and access.

Advanced Technology Libraries (AT/L) has selected information distribution and retrieval service ebrary to provide librarians with freely viewable, online access to its digital archives, ebrary provides a platform for securely distributing newsletters, magazines, and other publications online in an environment that maintains the exact appearance of the printed editions.(Portals & Intranets)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Advanced Technology Libraries (AT/L) has selected information distribution and retrieval service ebrary to provide librarians with freely viewable, online access to its digital archives, ebrary provides a platform for securely distributing...

MuseGlobal, Inc. and Kreutzfeldt Electronic Publishing of Hamburg, Germany, have announced Deutsches eBook-Portal, the first Web site serving as a point of access to more than 2,000 e-books in the German language.(Portals & Intranets)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... MuseGlobal, Inc. and Kreutzfeldt Electronic Publishing of Hamburg, Germany, have announced Deutsches eBook-Portal, the first Web site serving as a point of access to more than 2,000 e-books in the German language. Visitors to the portal can...

Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) and the University of Bielefeld (Germany) announced an agreement to further promote the development and implementation of search technology for the benefit of the online academic information landscape.(Portals & Intranets)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) and the University of Bielefeld (Germany) announced an agreement to further promote the development and implementation of search technology for the benefit of the online academic information landscape. With over...

Swets Blackwell announced plans to change its company name to Swets Information Services in December 2003.(Online Services)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Swets Blackwell announced plans to change its company name to Swets Information Services Services in December 2003. As part of the agreement with Blackwell concerning the purchase of shares from the Swets Blackwell joint venture, the Blackwell...

JSTOR joins the data sources accessible via WilsonWeb's WilsonLink.(Online Services)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... JSTOR joins the data sources accessible via WilsonWeb's WilsonLink. Customers who subscribe to WilsonWeb and who are JSTOR participants are able to link directly to the full-text articles in the JSTOR archive of 320 scholarly journals via...

In the spirit of the California recall, Factiva launched its first media visibility metric service that tracks the visibility of high-profile election candidates.(Online Services)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... In the spirit of the California recall, Factiva launched its first media visibility metric service that tracks the visibility of high-profile election candidates. The Factiva Index is a new tool to show a quantitative snapshot of the media's...

Factiva.(Online Services)(Offers two new subscription options for individuals or small businesses that need to conduct occasional business research )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Two new subscription options for individuals or small businesses in need of conducting occasional business research are now available from Factiva. Subscribers can access content direct from Factiva or via links in The Wall Street Journal...

The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) is now available through the Internet Database Service from CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts).(Social Sciences & Humanities)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) is now available through the Internet Database Service from CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts). The IBSS database provides coverage of the core social science disciplines of...

Project MUSE.(Social Sciences & Humanities)(New journals will be added to online collection of scholarly journals)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Project MUSE, an online collection of scholarly journals in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Arts, announced new journals joining the project in 2004. Among its participating publishers for 2004 are the University of Toronto Press,...

Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the National Library of the Netherlands, has signed an agreement to secure the long-term digital archiving of all research published by BioMed Central.(Biomedical)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the National Library of the Netherlands, has signed an agreement to secure the long-term digital archiving of all research published by BioMed Central. As well as archiving all of the publisher's research articles,...

Kluwer Academic Publishers announced its participation in the second phase of the philanthropic project Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI).(Biomedical)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Kluwer Academic Publishers announced its participation in the second phase of the philanthropic project Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI). The initiative is a major aspect of the Health InterNetwork project introduced...

EMBASE.com.(Biomedical)(Highlights coverage of Monkeypox)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Monkeypox is a rare viral disease usually found in the rainforests of Central and West Africa. With several confirmed cases appearing recently in the United States, EMBASE.com has highlighted its coverage of this rare disease. The first...

AlltheWeb.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Expands number of file types it indexes)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... AlltheWeb has expanded the number of file types it indexes. Beyond the PDF, Microsoft Word, and Flash files it has been indexing, it now covers Rich Text Format, PowerPoint, Excel, PostScript, WordPerfect, and StarOffice. To limit to one of...

AltaVista.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Adds toolbar)
November 1, 2003... AltaVista, in keeping with all the other search engines, now has a toolbar as well. It actually has some useful features that differ from the other toolbars. It does require IE 5 or higher and Windows 95 of higher. Like others, it has site...

Gigablast.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Adds full Boolean searching, indexing of PDF and other file types, and some metatags)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Gigablast has been rather busy--adding full Boolean searching, the indexing of PDF and other file types, and some metatags. The full Boolean is available from the main page search box and supports nesting. Operators are AND, OR, AND NOT and...

Google.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Introduces new operator, the tilde (~), for searching synonyms)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Google has introduced a new operator, the tilde (~), for searching synonyms. It should be placed immediately before a search term, with no space. It uses some of the technology behind the Google Sets experiment to try and determine similar...

Google Dance.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Changed its update cycle)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Google Dance: Of course, as soon as I took the time to describe the Google Dance in detail (my September/October 2003 "On the Net" column), Google significantly changed its update cycle. In the summer of 2003, the update changed from a huge,...

Google News.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Now has an advanced search page and alerts)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Google News now has an advanced search page and alerts. The advanced search includes options for sorting by date, specifying the news source, a location limit, a date limit, and field searches for headline, body, and URL. The news alert service...

HotBot.(Internet Search Engine Update)
November 1, 2003... HotBot, which offers four different search engine databases, has changed the names of three of the four. It has moved to names known better by the general public. So, Inktomi is now just "HotBot," FAST is now called "Lycos," and Teoma is "Ask...

Lycos.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Lycos now includes results from LookSmart in its Web Results section)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Lycos now includes results from LookSmart in its Web Results section. While the AlltheWeb (FAST) database continues to make up the bulk of the Lycos underlying database, for about 50,000 popular keywords, 10 listings from LookSmart will display...

Shopping.com.(Internet Search Engine Update)(Has launched anew as combination of the old Dealtime and Epinions sites)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Shopping.com has launched anew as a combination of the old Dealtime and Epinions sites. This newly relaunched shopping search engine includes the price comparison features and product metadata from Dealtime and consumer reviews from Epinions....

Yahoo!(Internet Search Engine Update)(Has relaunched its shopping search site )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Yahoo! has relaunched its shopping search site [http:// shopping.yahoo.com]. Shopping results appear on a regular Yahoo! search under a new "Products" tab. Like Shopping.com, results include product information, user reviews, and a price...

The information industry revolution: implications for librarians.
November 1, 2003... Ah, the "L" word. The profession has been debating whether or not to use the "L word"--librarian--for quite some time. The debate has found its way through the naming of graduate (library) schools, which have emerged with multiple permutations,...

Alacra: trying harder: where Alacra really adds value is in its commitment to working with internal library and information technology departments.(features)
November 1, 2003... Maybe Alacra [www. Alacra.com] should license the Avis slogan "We Try Harder. Avis launched its famous advertising slogan to make a virtue of its number-two position in the car rental industry and to publicize the company's commitment to...

Internet research toolbar: the IRT toolbar delivers powerful information-capturing abilities, whenever you're getting into serious research or trivia-collecting mode.
November 1, 2003... FLEXITY TECHNOLOGIES, INC. claims its Internet Research Toolbar (IRT) [www.internet-research-toolbar. com/] will "harness the power of online information" and goes on to bill itself as "an enhanced Google just for your own, ever-growing slice...

Putting "information" first in information technology.(IT professionals must continue to keep focus on improved access and enhanced use of information rather than implementation of gadgetry)
November 1, 2003... THE FACT that technology has changed our lives in nearly every way is indisputable. From how we pay our bills to the way we communicate with one another, advances in information technology have fundamentally altered the foundation of our world....

Science and math Web resources: for the higher-education community.
November 1, 2003... Although many academic libraries offer basic Internet instruction, today's searchers have become increasingly Internet savvy and have little interest in general Internet seminars and workshops. However, I've identified a growing need for...

Unusual power Web searching commands.(on the net)
November 1, 2003... Web searching has changed the nature of online. What online searcher, even a decade ago, would have thought that hundreds of millions of online searches would be sent each day? Who is an online searcher these days? It can be almost anyone:...

Information quality matters.(the dollar sign)
November 1, 2003... Should business researchers be obsessed with information quality? Personally, I think they should. Yet the notion of information quality is fraught with difficulties. As Stephen Adams pointed out ("Information Quality, Liability, and...

Online searchers and online managers.(O'Leary online)
November 1, 2003... When I first started writing for ONLINE in May 1985, the main topic of discussion among online professionals was end-user searching. The amount of digital content on the professional services at that time was immense; most significantly, large...

Exploiting intranet search engines for data discovery.(intranet librarian)
November 1, 2003... No doubt about it: A good intranet search engine is a, maybe the, critical service to offer users. But have you thought about its value to the Webmaster? No, not for searching per se, but as a monitoring tool. Search query log reports shed...

Globalization of corporate information centers.(industry insights)
November 1, 2003... Corporate information centers in large enterprises are quickly moving toward increased global cooperation, creating a new set of challenges and opportunities. As a stark economy leads large companies to evaluate support units for potential...

Nothing measured, nothing gained.(web site management)
November 1, 2003... As we become more sophisticated in using the Web to deliver services and content to our users, the need to track user behavior and tie this back to meaningful results becomes increasingly important. In fact, with many companies now conducting a...

MEDLINEplus: Webster's New World Medical Dictionary: X-Plain Tutorials.(Peter's picks & pans)
November 1, 2003... This month, the picks include the MEDLINEplus service, which offers excellent information sources (with the exception of one component) through an unusually pure and pleasant interface, and the free online version of the 2nd edition of the...

Not fade away: the box survives.(PC monitor)
November 1, 2003... Almost everything about personal computing has changed in the 22 years since the first IBM PC appeared--but if you compare today's typical personal computer with that relic, you'll find three key similarities: * Both use Intel CPUs. *...

Recommended reading for information professionals.(hardcopy)(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... featured books Building & Running a Successful Research Business Designing with Web Standards Enterprise Knowledge Portals Federal Regulatory Research: Selected Agency Knowledge Paths This month I look at a book to help...

Archiving the Web.(online spotlight)
November 1, 2003... I hope that you have discovered the Wayback Machine [www.archive.org] by now--that way-cool collection of 30 billion (yes, billion) Web pages dating back to 1996. It's a splendid tool for tracking down material that was removed from a Web site,...